


reluctant soulmates

by YukinaMika



Series: 2021 [10]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Multi, Reluctant Soulmates AU, i'm experimenting with new things :), this fic is a happy accident (with a bit of tears but anyway)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:42:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29734761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YukinaMika/pseuds/YukinaMika
Summary: Finding a soulmate is a joyous thing, worthy of celebration.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: 2021 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2084436
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	reluctant soulmates

The night passes, uneasy with each splotch of color vivid on her skin. The silence is penetrated by the occasional whimpers of pain from the bundle of blanket on their shared bed.

The sharing of pain is certainly uncommon between soulmates. Things get worse when your soulmate lives a high-stake life.

Painkillers are common enough in their line of work. However, there is a time when they stop working and both of them have no desire to find that fine line.

Nowadays, Dick either takes sleeping pills when the pain starts to get unbearable or he curls up in a nest of blankets and pillows, trying to will the pain away with his own will and the softness of the sheets.

"He's finally asleep," she hushes Plagg when the little cat plays with his tiny ball of yarn too fiercely, "I don't want him to wake up right now."

The splotches of colors are still blooming on her skin. Some, big and deep, stay for minutes while others, small and light, disappears in mere seconds.

Sometimes, she wonders about another world where she is the one who feels the pain and Dick is the one whose skin is painted with colors. Sometimes, she traces the ugly bruises liked marks and imagines a world where fate binds only Dick and her together, where the only pain Dick feels is hers and only blue graces her skin.

"Is your other... soulmate alright?" Tikki murmurs, tucked into the crook of her neck, "It has never been this bad, has it?"

She snorts quietly at that, eyeing the colors she bears. Her skin looks like it is bruised black and blue rather than painted by the colors corresponding to her soulmates' injuries. Dick whimpers mutely in his nest of blankets and pillows and the black hair that peaks out under the blanket looks soaked with sweats.

"Is there really no way to reverse this?"

Plagg freezes, the ball of yarn rolls toward the edge of the nightstand. Tikki looks at her with sad eyes and a shake of her head.

She has asked this time and time again and no one has ever nodded. Every time, it is another shake of the head and sometimes, a murmured apologize.

As if they are the one who tied them both to Slade Wilson. As if the pain Dick suffers through is their fault.

Finding a soulmate is a joyous thing, worthy of celebration. Multiple soulmates are rare and is even more of a cause of celebration. However, they sat silently together when the implication of a) them being soulmates and b) Dick having another soulmate drew out the conclusion.

Before, they had fought, denying the truth, insisting that it was mistake, that something was wrong. Nowadays, Dick grimaces at the thought of soulmates while Marinette eschews wearing black and blue.

Black stops showing up a while later and the lightest of them fade away slowly but surely. Blue still lingers - the marks of the same injuries that Dick got from falling from the rooftop into the trash.

In the nest of blankets and pillows, Dick's breath even out. Tension bleeds out of his body as his legs stretch and he rolls to his side.

"I'm going to get some snacks," she tells Plagg and Tikki, "Dick will want some when he wakes up."

The two kwamiis take that as a dismissal, aiming huge, forlorn eyes at her. Tikki presses a kiss on her jaw and Plagg purrs, quiet and reassuring before they rush at the wall and phase outside.

The left-overs are heated up. It takes seemingly no time between her putting them into the microwave and her returning to the bedroom with food and a glass of water.

And yet, she returns to a familiar face that was definitely not there when she left for the kitchen.

"Dupain-Cheng," Wilson greets, leaning back on the chair that she had sat in, "I see you have been busy."

A curse is already on her tongue but Dick is still asleep in his soft nest and she has food and water. It is easier to set the food and water on the nightstand before turning to Dick to rouse him awake.

Dick is easy to rouse - vigilance training or whatever. He looks almost fragile in the weary lines and the haze in his eyes.

“Either clean yourself up or get out,” she says in reply, hand steadying a disoriented Dick as he rises from his nest of blankets and pillows, “Neither of us have time for your games, Wilson.”

There is a ghost of a snort in the silence and the quirk of Dick’s lips unravels something tight and bitter in her chest. Under her eyes, Dick takes careful sips of water, and the tension bleeds from her shoulder with every quiet gulp.

Logically, she knows that every pain that Dick feels is, more or less, phantom. There is no physical harm coming his way, none of his blood shed. However, she cannot stop herself from fussing over his tiniest whimper or the strange twist of his features.

“You look awful,” Dick’s voice is hoarse, shaking with the aftershock of the last few hours of pain that he suffered through. Still, his eyes have regained the sharpness that had been dulled by hours of pain, “What happened.”

“Oh yes, please do tell,” she glares over the colorful splotches, the black would fade by tomorrow but the blue would stay for longer, perhaps until after that meeting she has tomorrow, “I do need an excuse for these.”

“Would torture be an appropriate answer?” Wilson laughs, mirthless as he brushes through the catches of his armors, “I believe the media would appreciate an in-depth reencounter of the last few hours.”

Marinette still remembers listening in to the secret meetings between Talia and her mother and hearing the name Deathstroke being thrown around. Her mother has always spit the name out with so much disdain and respect that it is hard to know what she actually feels about her once-time colleague.

 _“He is a bastard, make no mistake,”_ her mother says, time and time again, _“But he is one of the best out there.”_

And anyone who can subdue Deathstroke has the potential to become a worry for the caped community.

She can see Dick coming to the same conclusion with the quietest intake of breath.

“Who was it?” he asks, looking as if he wants to jump to his feet to investigate this, “Where did they hold you?”

Marinette would bet all of the cookies she can make in a day that it was somewhere in Bludhaven. Who, she did not know but the location must be either in Bludhaven or near its vicinity.

But, seeing as Wilson is here…

“Don’t worry your pretty head, Grayson,” Wilson titters, which is weird as fuck and… wrong, “I doubt your caped community will ever have to deal with them.”

Yeah… Her intuition was right.

She probably should be horrified, like Dick is. Or perhaps, angered by the blatant disregard of human lives.

“And why are you here?” she asks instead, “Don’t you usually go lick your wounds somewhere else?”

Dick makes a noise of agreement, leaning forward to put the glass on the nightstand before hissing and recoiling to clutch at his dislocated shoulder. The glass, thankfully, is deposited safely on the nightstand.

Marinette files a reminder to check the glass for crack as she sooths a hand down Dick’s back. It would not be good if it breaks when one of them pours boiled water into it, would it? Besides, cleaning up glass shards is no fun.

“Actually, I’m wondering the same thing,” he waves off her hand with a small grimace, still sour about Wilson’s more-or-less confession, “You wouldn’t stop by if it is not something important.”

And impossible too, with the amount of time between the moment new splotches of black stopped appearing on her skin and when she returned from the kitchen. It points toward the possibility of Deathstroke having a contract in Bludhaven or its vicinity but Dick does not need to know that. At least, until that dislocated shoulder and the ankle that Dick sprained and still stubbornly brushes it off as something minor heal.

“And here I thought you would appreciate my presence after such a hard time.”

Marinette is sure that the unimpressed look on Dick’s face mirrors that of her. After all, it is usually Dick and her who cling to each other after hard times. Slade only comes to them only a handful of times, though mostly when either of their lives are in danger.

Just as Dick feels both of their pain and Marinette sees the evidences of their injuries, Wilson, too, is tied to them by fate. It is one of the rarer types of bonds: Wilson’s life is linked to theirs.

As long as both Dick and her is healthy and living and in no danger of death, Wilson lives. Yet the very moment death claims one of them, Wilson’s life is forfeited.

Marinette had laughed until she cried when Dick told her of that nice little detail. Sometimes, she wonders is linking their lives together the only way to ensure that Wilson would not murder his soulmates.

Sometimes, she thinks about it, about fate and this strange arrangement. Sometimes, she closes her eyes and trusts in whatever fate is.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so, I might have misread a prompt but since I wrote it already, might as well post it.


End file.
